Most golf balls are colored white while a variety of golf balls of different colors are commercially available as well. Such balls, generally referred to as color balls, are colored red, blue, yellow, orange, green or otherwise by incorporating white pigments and fluorescent pigments in a resin composition of which the ball surface is made. It would be desirable to further improve the fashionable quality of balls. Recent known means of imparting a brilliance to the ball and endowing the ball with an outer appearance whose color changes with the viewing angle include a technique of incorporating a cholesteric liquid crystal polymer (of a cholesteric phase structure having nematic phases spirally stacked) into a cover resin composition.
For example, JP-A 2002-102389 discloses a golf ball comprising a core and a cover wherein the cover is formed of a composition comprising 100 parts by weight of a base resin and 0.1 to 20 parts by weight of a cholesteric liquid crystal. The ball has a brilliance and an outer appearance whose color changes with the viewing point.
However, in the case of three or multi-piece golf balls having an intermediate layer or layers between the solid core and the cover, when the above-described cover composition is used as a cover stock, the outer appearance of the resulting ball is largely affected by the color of the intermediate layer. Even if a brilliance is established by the cholesteric liquid crystal polymer, the color harmony over the entire ball can be exacerbated. Particularly when mold marks are noticeable on the ball surface after injection molding of the cover resin composition, the ball has a poor outer appearance. That is, the ball has noticeable mold marks on its surface despite a brilliance provided by the cholesteric liquid crystal polymer. It is desired to further improve the outer appearance of balls.
Depending on a formulation balance between cholesteric liquid crystal polymer and various pigments such as titanium oxide and fluorescent pigments and a particular composition of base resin, some of the characteristics essentially required for golf balls including ball rebound, controllability, feel on impact, durability and scuff resistance become poor. In particular, the golf ball of the above patent is low in spin performance and scuff resistance.
Reference is also made to JP-A 2002-502678 (WO 99/40977).